Microsoft, Ericsson and Sony, the end of a ménage à trois
Microsoft pulls out of joint venture with Ericsson
L.M. Ericsson Telephone confirmed on Friday that from now on it will take full control of its joint venture on mobile technology with Microsoft, Ericsson Microsoft Mobile Venture. "We have decided not to move forward with a joint company with Microsoft and to change the legal framework to that of a licensing agreement," Ericsson spokeswoman Aase Lindskog told IDG's London correspondent Laura Rohde. The Mobile Venture company will now become part of Ericsson's global systems integration business, Lindskog said.
Microsoft did not comment on the dissolution of the joint venture, which was launched in Dec. 1999 with much fanfare from both Microsoft president, now CEO, Steve Ballmer and Ericsson President and CEO Kurt Hellström.
The partnership was initially designed to use Ericsson's WAP telephone technology and Microsoft's Internet-enabled mobile phone software platform, Microsoft Mobile Explorer (MME), to produce mobile handsets.
The alliance would provide Microsoft with a firm position in the mobile market, and Microsoft CEO Balmer then said he hoped all 30 million people that were then using Exchange for e-mail would use the platform for e-mail access over mobile phones when it became available.
"We have noticed that the demand from the mobile market is much bigger now than when we started this agreement, and it also took us a lot longer to develop our product than we had thought," Lindskog said Friday.
In September of last year, Microsoft and Ericsson announced that they expected the first jointly produced mobile handsets to be commercially available for mobile operators by the end of 2000, something which did not materialize.
The joint venture was to be 70 percent owned by Ericsson with Microsoft taking a 30 percent stake, but that transaction was never carried out, Lindskog said. Ericsson Microsoft Mobile Venture "has always been fully owned by Ericsson and Microsoft never purchased their 30 percent," Lindskog said.
News that the joint venture was facing dissolution first came to light on Thursday when the Swedish newspaper Dagens Industri reported that Ericsson was rethinking the relationship and had held crisis talks with Microsoft Wednesday night. Just two days prior to that, Ericsson and Sony formally announced their new mobile phone brand, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications.
No comments
Industry News
- Nobel laureate Yunus threatens to sue Telenor 07 Sep 2008
- Reding to ready to lower the SMS price ceiling 07 Sep 2008
- Telefonica increases Chinese investment 07 Sep 2008
- Nokia lowers its third quarter market share outlook 06 Sep 2008
- VimpelCom 3G goes commercial in St. Petersburg 04 Sep 2008
- Nokia N96 begins shipping 03 Sep 2008
- Nokia to launch 'Comes With Music' first in the UK 02 Sep 2008
- Nokia keeps texting with Zi 30 Aug 2008
- India gets its first 3G service 30 Aug 2008
- Nokia Siemens sells Korean equipment maker 30 Aug 2008
Chapters
- Brussels
- Buenos Aires
- Caracas
- Chennai
- Chicago
- Copenhagen
- Dallas
- Dublin
- Dusseldorf
- Frankfurt
- Geneva
- Helsinki
- Hong Kong
- Hyderabad
- Istanbul
- Jakarta
- Kuala Lumpur
- Lithuania
- London
- Los Angeles
- Madrid
- Melbourne
- Milan
- Monaco
- Montreal
- Moscow
- Upcoming
- Croatia
- Hamburg 9 Jun 2008
- Philadelphia 1 Oct 2007
Maintained by MobileMonday Oy. Privacy Policy, Copyright and Terms of Use